Scarlett Answers Mayor Veto
Jefferson County Commission Budget Committee Chairman John Neal Scarlett recently addressed the points made by Jefferson County Mayor Palmieri in his veto of the fiscal year 2017/18 budget, which was approved June 29,2017 by the full body of the Jefferson County Commission. In his veto, Mayor Palmieri raised questions regarding funding decisions that were a part of the budget proposal presented to the full body, particularly in regard to funding of emergency services, the potential for adding a Human Resource employee, employee pay raises, and chamber of commerce funding levels, among other concerns. He also included the salary of the Supervisor of the Environmental Department, which was cut in a previous budget cycle and, to date, has not been restored and is currently in litigation.
Budget Committee Chairman Scarlett expressed his reassurance to the citizens of Jefferson County that the County Commission is working diligently on their behalf to be judicious with the tax payers’ money. This budget season, the Budget Committee, once again, presented the full body with a budget that included no property tax increase. Scarlett said that he is proud of the work that the Committee, Finance Department, and Department Heads put into the budget process, noting that the only significant cuts to any department’s previous budget were to the Election Office, and that those funds were not needed because of the way the election cycle falls this fiscal year. Any trimming that was done was to new requests and, according to Scarlett, most departments walked away with at least part of their additional requests. Budget Chairman Scarlett contends that even the requests of the Office of the Mayor were funded, “The Mayor is an Ex officio member of the Budget Committee, and is entitled to participate in the budget process. We, as a budget committee, met eight times to address the fiscal year 2017/18 budget, and the Mayor attended two of those eight meetings, once on January 19 and the other on May 22. The only request that he addressed the Commission about was the need for additional funds for the Medical Examiner, which was on May 22, 2017. His request for additional funding was dealt with expediently, and his request was approved.”
As a point in his veto, Mayor Palmieri expressed concern regarding an inadequate employee raise, which was approved at 1.4%. Chairman Scarlett questioned the information source used in the veto point, citing the CPI as the budget committee’s decision base. He noted that County employees were not given a raise in the previous budget, and it was important to many members of the budget committee and full body that an employee raise was included in the fiscal year 2017/18 budget and was, in fact, one of the first items discussed. Scarlett said, “We based our information on the Bureau of Labor and were proud that we were able to not only give a raise this year, but to catch up with the CPI from the previous budget. The State of Tennessee deemed that elected officials get a 5% raise, which was mandated. Never was the employee raise brought before the budget committee by the Mayor. The information provided with the veto was the first time that he addressed the County employee raise. Likewise, he did not request a Human Resource person or ADA compliance in his budget request. The Capital Projects budget request, which comes from a County department, was fully funded, and did not included any ADA Compliance issues, though it did include more than a half a million dollars in additional funding.”
Emergence Service funding has long been a hot topic during budget, and this year was no different. Fire Department Funding took a great deal of budget time, and Chairman Scarlett acknowledges that an issue exists with the current fire department funding formula. While it still needs work, Scarlett was satisfied that the budget committee and County Commission did what they could to increase some of the largest department’s funding this year, with an eye on a more across-the-board solution. He said that the Town of Dandridge was willing to come to the table and work with the County Commission on a reasonable funding increase that would not cost County tax payers an increase in property tax. As for funding ambulance purchases, which was an item in the Mayor’s veto information release, Scarlett said that the ambulance line item was fully funded at $360,000. What did not get funded were replacement heart monitors, but the Budget Chair said that the County does currently have heart monitors. As for the ambulances, Scarlett said, “They just received three in May that were funded last year, and they have funding approved for three more. That means that, in one calendar year, six of the ten ambulances that we run in Jefferson County will be new. The Director of E911 requested employees, and we answered that request last year with one new employee. This fiscal year we are funding another employee position. We always strive to fund emergency services, and decisions are based on the numbers that are presented by the Directors. As far as funding vehicles for the Sheriff’s Department, which was mentioned in the veto information that was released, I am not really sure why the Mayor is addressing the Sheriff’s Department, which is not under his direction. But, the funding rational is that the Sheriff has 87 vehicles that average 90,000 miles. He gets 9 vehicles every year, but they are run daily and are necessary to the function of the department. In some departments, a used vehicle will work just fine, and that is what we ask them to request instead of a new vehicle. That is just not the case with the Sheriff’s Department.”
Budget Committee Chair Scarlett said that he believes that the fiscal year 2017/18 budget is a fair disbursement of funds, and that there will always be differences in opinion. “Take, for instance, the Chamber of Commerce funding. We didn’t cut the base funding for the Chamber of Commerce, we just didn’t give them access to the excess hotel/motel tax, which they had been getting the past couple of years. They were the only non-profit that was able to get monies above their appropriation, and, instead, this year the County Commission funded up to $40,000 to the Industrial Development Board to replace money that they spent on the economic development proposals, with any additional funds to be held in reserve. There was no right or wrong in the decision; it came down to decision on any excess funds, and this year the budget committee and County Commission decided to leave the Chamber funding at their base funding with no cuts, but without automatic access to any extra funds.”
Citizens will not feel any impact from the veto, and business will continue as usual in Jefferson County, because the County Commission already approved a continuing budget in case of veto. The exception could be in employee raises, which will not go into place until the new budget season, which is currently on hold awaiting the County Commission to meet and override or uphold the Mayoral Veto. Budget Committee Chair Scarlett said, “We asked the citizens to allow us to increase the wheel tax last fiscal year, and we are indebted to our citizens for that decision. We owe it to them to get value for every dollar, and the fiscal year 2017/18 budget reflects responsible fiscal management of the people’s money. Every concern listed by the Mayor could have been answered during the budget process with good, credible information, which is what the Committee used in the decision making process.”
As of the day of print, it had not been decided if the County Commission will hold a called meeting to address the veto, or if they will take up the issue at their regular voting meeting.
